I’ve worked with the Gadget Show Live team since 2012 and I’m thrilled to be back! This year I’m literally all over the show, presenting a feature on Top Smartphones and Tablets of 2015 with John Mason, as well as fronting my own Wear Next for Wearable Tech (see what I did there?) show.

The Innovation Theatre, where the British Inventors’ Project shows take place every day, was a real highlight of last year’s Gadget Show Live so I’m excited to be back getting under the skin of inventors and seeing what makes them and their inventions tick.

The Gadget Show Live runs from Tuesday 7th April 2015 for press and trade, and then from Wednesday 8th April to Sunday 12th April 2015 for public. More info and ticket from the Gadget Show Live website.

I’m thrilled once again to be hosting Photography Show TV live from the NEC in Birmingham.

The Photography Show is the largest event of its kind in the UK, bringing camera and kit manufacturers together with photography professionals and enthusiasts.

I hosted the first live TV stream last year alongside Charlotte Holmes and, being quite the camera nut, was like a pig in muck all weekend long.

This year’s show will be the first chance for many to get hands-on with the latest cameras including the Canon 5DS, 5DSR and for video fans the C100 Mk II. Alongside those, I’m personally excited to see the Steadicam Solo in action (an extensible Steadicam rig and monopod all-in-one, of course), the Lytro Illum and Panasonic CM1 alongside all of the latest smartphone photography and videography innovations. See what I mean about pig in muck…?

This year I’m presenting the live stream with Andrew James, an industry professional and previous editor-in-chief of Practical Photography and Digital Photo. I’m also delighted to be working again with my good friends at Silverstream TV.

Performance boost plus Windows 10 support for new Pi PC

The new Raspberry Pi 2 was announced today promising enough of a performance boost to make it ‘the second PC in the house’.

The credit-card sized computer debuted in 2012 and has since been embraced by schools, maker communities, industrial automation engineers and even the UK Space programme.

At today’s launch event its creator Eben Upton revealed a ripened Raspberry Pi with a quad-core ARMv7 processor and 1 GB RAM, claiming 6 times the speed of the previous B+ model.

This improved performance opens the door to a range of additional applications in schools and industry, as well as in the home.

Its in-home credentials may have been further boosted by the announcement that the Pi 2 will support both Ubuntu Linux and, thanks to a 6-month collaboration with Microsoft, Windows 10.

Raspberry Pi 2 claims x6 performance boost (image: David McClelland)y

However, exactly what you’ll be able to do with a Windows-powered Pi isn’t entirely clear, even whether it will include a desktop user interface.

Speaking to Computer Weekly, Upton confirmed that the version of Windows 10 that Microsoft is to make available for free would be an IoT edition “more like what Microsoft did for Galileo [an Intel-based Arduino-compatible developer board].

Microsoft has yet to make a statement about its exact capabilities, we don’t want to create an unjustified impression as to what capabilities it’s going to have.”

Despite the power-up the Raspberry Pi 2 maintains full compatibility with previous versions, sporting the same credit-card form factor and, importantly, the bank-card friendly price.

Since its release total sales of the maker machine have topped 4.5 million, and Upton anticipates a further three million units will ship this year alone. Not a bad return when initial sales projections for the Raspberry Pi were in the ‘tens of thousands’ range.

First published 2nd February 2015 in Computer Weekly. Articles, features and reviews are reproduced on this site by prior arrangement as samples of my work and remain the property of their respective publishers and copyright owners.

Earlier this year I joined the presenting team of TV’s top mobile technology show, Planet of the Apps.

Co-hosted by Adam Savage and Lucy Hedges, Planet of the Apps is now into its third season. Described as the essential guide to everything mobile it covers apps, accessories and everything in between.

So far this series I’ve flown a vintage biplane to test the world’s first wearable smart camera, grappled a 50-foot dragon while wearing Sony’s virtual reality headgear, and wreaked actual havoc with a smartphone-controlled drone.

Flying a vintage biplane (a 1940′s Boeing Stearman) has been one of my personal highlights from the series – here’s a clip:

The final episode of the season broadcasts this Tuesday 18th November at 7.30pm with Adam, Lucy and me sharing our best bits from the year.

It’s been an insane few months making the show, but great working with Adam, Lucy and the rest of the team.

Planet of the Apps is produced in London by Ginx TV, and broadcasts to over 40 territories. In the UK you can watch Planet of the Apps on Virgin Media channel 286.

The stories I covered were both Apple-focused but, it’s fair to say, at different ends of the good news spectrum.

First up was the iPhone 6 and 6 plus launch along with the long-awaited announcement of an Apple Watch. Apple product launches are always big news, but this year’s phones were equally big to match.

The ‘iCloud Celebrity Photo Hack’ (or “The Fappening”, as it has also come to be known) is an altogether different news item, made more difficult because there’s a lot that’s still unknown about how private photos of celebrities came to be leaked in the first place – not least, whether Apple’s iCloud is even culpable.

The new series of Rip Off Britain is well underway, airing on BBC1 throughout September and October.

As usual I’ve been appearing with the team giving expert advice on safe and savvy use of technology and the internet.

It’s been a busy series for me: as well as appearing in the Popup Shop in the West Midlands I’ve been covering a variety of topics including online password security, nuisance call blockers, how online advertising works, and taking care when connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots.

One item that has generated a lot of interest is online password security.

On average we have 26 online logins each in the UK, with 25-34 years old managing up to 40. Most worrying of all is that Experian, who conducted the research, found that despite the number of accounts we manage, we each use an average of just 5 different passwords!

When researching the item I tried to count how many online accounts I owned: I stopped when I reached 90. I know I’ve many more, and it’s a number that’s only going to grow. I also realised that it’s very rare that I go back to delete an account that I no longer use, particularly if it’s with an online retailer I’ve used just the once to buy a gift.

In the show I ran a workshop in a shopping centre to highlight the challenges of safely managing our online accounts. Of course, it’s a big subject with too much to share in a short item on television, so to help further I put together a leaflet.

Watch Rip Off Britain on BBC iPlayer or to see clips of the show and further tips visit the BBC Rip Off Britain website. Also, look out for details of the Rip Off Britain Live show on BBC1 from 20th-24th October 2014.

BBC Radio Cumbria invited me to join them for a weekly technology spot in their morning show over the summer.

In Technology Corner I’ve been exploring everything in science and tech from Google Glass, smartwatches and the latest in wearables, to alternative fuels, eco-homes and upgrade culture. During the BBC’s WW1 centenary commemorations I presented a special item on technology that has changed the world over the last 100 years.

For the Gadget Show Live I've presented and produced shows such as The HUB Theatre World’s Coolest Cameras, Smartphone Creativity, Wear Next for Wearable Tech and Top Smartphones and Tablet, and championed inventors and inventions as host of the GSL British Inventors' Project.